Elegoo has apparently given up on multicolor desktop 3D printing, at least on their original Centauri Carbon system.
At the time of its introduction about a year ago, Elegoo’s FFF competitors all offered some form of multicolor 3D printing. Anycubic had the ACE Pro filament swapping accessory, Bambu Lab offered the AMS, and so on. It was becoming a de facto standard feature for inexpensive desktop FFF 3D printers.
But Elegoo didn’t have such an accessory. Nevertheless, they released the Centauri Carbon anyway, with a hint they would be adding one later. That seemed quite reasonable at the time, since all the other desktop 3D printer manufacturers had done so — if they could make them, surely Elegoo will make one too.
Even better, Elegoo set the price of the Centauri Carbon to a rock-bottom level that was basically half of the then-current price for such equipment. This significantly disrupted the market and reset the base price for 3D printers, and generated a huge amount of sales for Elegoo. As the Centauri Carbon was an advanced, low cost CoreXY enclosed system, it effectively killed the market for inexpensive open gantry 3D printers.
We tested the Centauri Carbon in depth and found it to be an excellent 3D printer, particularly at the low price point.
All was good.
Except that the long-awaited filament swapping accessory for the Centauri Carbon did not appear. Month after month, no announcements appeared.
Eventually the company quietly announced the Centauri Carbon 2, an upgraded version that did include a multicolor feature — although not exactly what was expected. Instead of an accessory — that might be used with the original Centauri Carbon — the upgraded version bolted on the necessary hardware right onto the frame of the device. You had to buy the Centauri Carbon 2 to get the multicolor feature.
Unfortunately Elegoo did not offer an upgrade path from the original Centauri Carbon to version 2, effectively blocking that path to multicolor 3D printing.
Now it seems they’ve thrown in the towel. In a bulletin from the company yesterday, they said:
“Since last year, our engineering team has been working on multicolor printing for Centauri Carbon. Due to some limitation of the hardware, so far the developing multicolor system has not yet delivered a performance that meets our expectation. And we cannot guarantee a release date for the multicolor system so far.”
At first this sounds like they may eventually release something, but that seems unlikely if they have already released a second 3D printer in the Centauri line, and are likely working on a third.
I speculated earlier that it could be that Elegoo sees the writing on the wall: single nozzle filament swappers are on their way out and will become rapidly obsolete. Several other companies have or are developing new styles of systems that can print with no waste material, typically generated by single nozzle filament swapping systems. Elegoo’s delay may simply be that they don’t want to waste their time releasing a product that would be less salable next year.
Then they said this:
“To express our sincere appreciation for your trust and understanding, we are providing the following exclusive benefit for users who have already purchased the Centauri Carbon:
- Option A: A $50 coupon (valid for 3 months, for filament order on Elegoo official store over $100)
- Option B: A 365-day warranty extension for your Centauri Carbon (excluding consumable parts)
- Option C: An $80 USD coupon applicable to your purchase of Centauri Carbon 2 Combo (to be released in Q1, 2026)”
To me, this sounds like they have given up on the idea of providing a proper filament swapping accessory for the original Centauri Carbon. If they are paying money to buyers of a machine that already had a rock-bottom price with very likely minimal margin, they appear to be moving on.
This is massively disappointing for buyers of the original Centauri Carbon system, as most bought the machine with the expectation of a future multicolor capability. Numerous nasty conversations are now taking place on discussion forums and social media.
This development is unfortunate for Elegoo as it will almost certainly result in a huge loss of trust by the desktop 3D print community. It could affect future sales levels, as some may opt for other manufacturers’ products they perceive as more trustworthy.
Via Elegoo
